"I am the four-eyed, Russian-accented, 7-foot tall alien named Jumba," David Ogden Stiers explains to FilmForce. "Kevin McDonald and I play cohorts, and we both acknowledged in television interviews that we wish they hadn't caught us so well physically. They videotape you while you're doing the dialogue, for visual reference and sometimes you have to stand because, well, you have to stand... as long as your cloth doesn't rustle or you don't make some audible gesture... and by god, moments of movement and personal characteristics are even if it's fleetingly there. What's making this such a joy is that the movie is so darn good.

Dean DeBlois explained that originally, "Stitch was on trial as an adult. He and his gang had been riding around as hooligans; they were basically the 'Hell's Angels' of space and Stitch gets marooned during his escape on Earth. It was complicated to explain and that gang was only in the film to showcase just how much Stitch had changed. But we decided that, even though some of these sequences are already being animated and most of the gang characters designed and animated, that we had to stop and quickly repair. We decided to put the problem within him. He's a genetic creation.

June 23, 2002, Dean DeBlois Interview!

Lilo & Stitch's co-creator revealed to the Internet Movie Database that "when Jumba the creator comes into the house to try to catch Stitch, that used to be far more over the top. They were playing with gas mains and throwing ovens at each other; the scale of the damage was huge. We thought it was funny. But as it turned out, from the cards and the feedback we got back, the kids were stressed out during that sequence. They'd seen enough of Stitch's vulnerabilities and come to like him so much that they were really worried about him during that battle." Also, "our second act, used to be really dark. The little fish that Lilo talks about when we first meet her? The one she feeds peanut-butter to? She takes Stitch to meet him and, in the process of being really irresponsible, Stitch tosses the fish out the water and it gets attacked by a flock of seagulls and is killed. And it's kind of a lesson he has to learn, that his actions have consequences. He follows her to the graveyard where she buries this little fish right beside the headstones of Lilo's parents. It was to show that there's a real impact to your actions and that family is about protection, not carelessness. It was mostly in storyboard, although a few scenes had been animated."

June 13, 2002, Wynonna About Covering Elvis for Lilo & Stitch

Lilo & Stitch is set on a incredible tropical settings of this island paradise. Sanders, DeBlois, art director Sluiter, background supervisor Stanton, animator Andreas Deja and several others packed their cameras, paintbrushes and sketchbooks and headed to Hawaii for a two-week study session. Most of the trip was spent on the island of Kauai, where the team snorkeled, scuba-dived, surfed and visited such places as Hanalei, Hanapepe, the Napali Coast, Princeville and Ke’e Beach. Days were spent at the beach and at national parks observing foliage and vegetation, lava rocks, orange sand, turquoise seascapes, vermillion mountains and incredible sunsets. Deja visited a native Hawaiian school where the language and culture of the island was emphasized.

Perhaps the most important thing that the filmmakers took away with them from this field trip was the concept of ‘ohana the sense of family and unity that is shared by the native population. Sanders recalls, Before we went to Hawaii, we knew about ‘ohana, but we didn’t really experience the depth of it until we went there. Wherever we went, there was a sense of community and family that extends far beyond the immediate family. Everyone was super friendly and that seemed to be a part of the native mentality. We needed a reason in our story for Stitch’s transformation from bad to good and we began to think that he would be affected by ‘ohana. This was a major revelation for us. It soaked into every aspect of the film. We began to see Stitch as the ultimate orphan and when Lilo introduces him to this idea of an extended family, he latches onto it in an extreme way. The decision we made early on to set the story in Hawaii really laid out the destiny of the film and ‘ohana was just waiting for us to discover and incorporate.

Schumacher adds, One of the things I love about ‘Lilo & Stitch’ is the notion that no matter who you are a genetic experiment from another galaxy or a little girl who’s been left all alone in the world – you can find your place and make a family. You can tend to, nurture and take care of each other. I love the idea that you can go to this movie and have a really fun time but, at the same time, come away with a fantastic message like that. Chris and Dean have really gotten the values right in this film and combined it with a great fresh and fun piece of entertainment.

THE STORY:

Life has its challenges for Lilo, a lonely little Hawaiian girl who lives with her nineteen-year-old sister/guardian, Nani. The two girls have been struggling to make it on their own and things aren’t going particularly well. When Cobra Bubbles, a no-nonsense social worker, drops by for a home visit, he finds the sisters in the middle of an argument and the house in a shambles. He warns Nani that she has three days to prove that she’s an appropriate guardian for Lilo or the situation will have to change. That evening, Lilo sees a falling star soar past her bedroom window and wishes for someone to be her friend, someone who won’t run away. She adds, Maybe send me an angel the nicest angel you have.

In reality, the falling star is a spaceship belonging to Stitch, a mischief-making creature (officially known as Experiment 626) who has escaped from the planet Turo. His creator, a mad scientist named Jumba, explains that Stitch is bulletproof, fireproof, and can think faster than a supercomputer. He can see in the dark and move objects three thousand times his size. His only instinct to destroy everything he touches. The Grand Councilwoman of the Galactic Federation is not impressed and sentences Jumba to prison and decrees that Stitch be transported to a distant desert asteroid. Before Stitch’s sentence can be carried out by Captain Gantu, he steals a police cruiser and uses its hyper-drive to reach Earth. Completely out of options, the Grand Coucilwoman offers Jumba his freedom if he will help capture Stitch. To keep him in check, she also sends Pleakley, an enthusiastic, three-legged, one-eyed Earth hobbyist (whose entire knowledge of the planet comes from his study of View-master images).

Instead of being met by a welcome wagon, Stitch is immediately run down by a sugar cane truck. He awakes in an animal shelter, where he charms Lilo into adopting him (she names him Stitch). His advanced skills allow him to hide his extra limbs (going from six to four), antennae and back spikes to give the appearance of being an odd-looking dog. To the horror of her sister and the animal shelter employee, Lilo is enamored with Stitch and insists on adopting him. Realizing that Lilo and Nani provide a perfect safety shield against Jumba and Pleakley, Stitch welcomes the adoption and sticks like glue to his new family.

But all is not well on the homefront. Stitch proceeds to behave badly and create chaos while proving to be perhaps the least affectionate pet on the planet. When Lilo brings him to visit Nani at the luau restaurant where she works, Stitch wreaks havoc and Nani ends up getting fired. Still, Lilo takes him under her wing and encourages him to be a model citizen like her hero Elvis Presley. To lift their spirits, Nani’s former boyfriend and co-worker, David Kawena, suggests that an afternoon of surfing might cheer them. Stitch overcomes his initial aversion to surfing and eventually gets the hang of it. When Jumba and Pleakley arrive on the scene, they pull Stitch underwater and he has to be rescued by David.

Cobra Bubbles witnesses this disastrous scene at the beach and informs Nani that he has no choice but to take Lilo away. Stitch realizes that he is breaking up the family and that Lilo’s desire for ‘ohana (the Hawaiian word and concept for family where no one gets left behind or forgotten) is fading fast. When the Grand Councilwoman fires Jumba and Pleakley for their ineptitude, the duo make a last stand by going after Stitch at Lilo and Nani’s house. They end up destroying the house, but fail to get Stitch.

Just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, Captain Gantu arrives in a giant spacecraft to capture Stitch. Stitch escapes but Lilo is taken on board. Stitch, realizing at last that he is part of Lilo and Nani’s family, convinces Jumba and Pleakley to help him rescue Lilo. A wild chase through the Hawaiian island chain ensues and Stitch helps to rescue Lilo. When the Grand Councilwoman herself shows up to take Stitch into custody, the game appears to be over. But the rules of this game are anything but predictable.

ORIGINS OF THE PROJECT: A STITCH IN TIME

Chris Sanders first began thinking about a Stitch-like character nearly 17 years ago when he was just out of school and working on his first animation assignment. He drew a monstrous-looking creature and began toying with a wide range of plots to go with it. The character stayed with him over the years as he continued to search for the appropriate vehicle. Sanders recalls, Back in 1985, I made one drawing of Stitch in which I had partially constructed his head. After working on the story for a while, I got stuck and put it aside. Years later, while working on the story for ‘Mulan,’ I started thinking about him again. In the early versions, there was no Lilo and Stitch wasn’t an alien but rather a monstrosity that didn’t know where he came from. He was an anomaly who lived in the forest all by himself. That evolved into him being marooned on Earth for having done something really bad. Then the setting became Kansas and the story took place completely in the animal world. When I pitched it to Tom Schumacher, he suggested we should put Stitch in the human world to get more of a contrast. It was pretty much at that point that the story took off and I hooked up with Dean.

Producer Clark Spencer remembers, The film was originally going to take place in Kansas because it is sparsely populated and suited that aspect of the story. It happened to be around the time in the story development that Chris was planning a trip to Hawaii. As he studied the map of Hawaii, he saw all the islands spread out and surrounded by an ocean of blue. And he thought, ‘Hawaii is a very isolated location and would make a fantastic place to set the film.’ As he began to learn more about the wonderful rich culture and the history of the islands, it all began to take shape. The choice of Hawaii as a location informed a lot of different things. There’s hula dancing and surfing. There’s great native music. And there’s a spectrum of colors that you don’t get anywhere else in the world. In our film, audiences who haven’t been to the islands will also get to experience and understand a culture that is quite different than in other parts of the United States. DeBlois recalls, When I first read Chris’ book presentation, I fell in love with Lilo because she was eternally forgiving and full of love. She was just looking for someone to give it to. Nani and Lilo were on this crash course destiny and barely holding it together when Stitch comes in and accelerates the destruction of the family. In so doing, he is affected by Lilo and is the only one who can pull it back together. So these two very unlikely characters end up affecting each other’s lives in ways they wouldn’t have seen coming. Sanders notes, Most of the action in the film rests on Nani. She’s like the Gregory Peck character in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Everything pivots on her, But all is not well on the homefront. Stitch proceeds to behave badly and create chaos while proving to be perhaps the least affectionate pet on the planet. When Lilo brings him to visit Nani at the luau restaurant where she works, Stitch wreaks havoc and Nani ends up getting fired. Still, Lilo takes him under her wing and encourages him to be a model citizen like her hero Elvis Presley. To lift their spirits, Nani’s former boyfriend and co-worker, David Kawena, suggests that an afternoon of surfing might cheer them. Stitch overcomes his initial aversion to surfing and eventually gets the hang of it. When Jumba and Pleakley arrive on the scene, they pull Stitch underwater and he has to be rescued by David.

Cobra Bubbles witnesses this disastrous scene at the beach and informs Nani that he has no choice but to take Lilo away. Stitch realizes that he is breaking up the family and that Lilo’s desire for ‘ohana (the Hawaiian word and concept for family where no one gets left behind or forgotten) is fading fast. When the Grand Councilwoman fires Jumba and Pleakley for their ineptitude, the duo make a last stand by going after Stitch at Lilo and Nani’s house. They end up destroying the house, but fail to get Stitch. Just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, Captain Gantu arrives in a giant spacecraft to capture Stitch. Stitch escapes but Lilo is taken on board. Stitch, realizing at last that he is part of Lilo and Nani’s family, convinces Jumba and Pleakley to help him rescue Lilo. A wild chase through the Hawaiian island chain ensues and Stitch helps to rescue Lilo. When the Grand Councilwoman herself shows up to take Stitch into custody, the game appears to be over. But the rules of this game are anything but predictable.

June 12, 2002, Wynonna About Covering Elvis for Lilo & Stitch

"If you had said, two years ago, 'You're gonna sing an Elvis song in a Disney movie,' I would've laughed," the country singer told the Orlando Sentinel with a grin from Disneyworld in Florida. "It's absurd! But I love it, because I am getting crazier by the year. Just did a few shows in Vegas, at the Hilton," Wynonna says. "Stayed in his dressing room. I've tried on his clothes." She did the movie, "because Elijah is 71/2, and Grace is 6, and you don't get many chances to look cool to your kids. So this is my Grammy, thankuverymuch!" What about the Tower of Terror attraction she just tried at the park? "The kids loved it, but I hated it. The idea of being shut in an elevator, in the dark, scares me to death. The dropping? That's nothing, honey. I'm in the music business. But the darkness is just too much."

As of June 12, 2002 from Animated Movies

ABC Television announces that Disney's Lilo & Stitch Aloha From Hollywood will air Friday, June 21st. A great way to start the summer!

As of June 9, 2002 from Disney Catalog

A very interesting article was published a couple of weeks ago in the latest issue of the Disney Catalog: "When Chris Sanders, the cor-writer/co-director of Lilo & Stitch, originally pitched his story to Thomas Schumacher, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, he did it with a 15-page illustrated book that he had created to tell the story and suggest the look of the film. Schumacher gave Sanders the go ahead on the project with one condition--the final film must remain true to Sanders' original illustrated treatment. Sanders' original drawings suggested a watercolor approach, and art director Ric Sluiter was quick to realize that the loose style of the medium would best capture the lush, organic, overgrown and luminous feeling of the Hawaiian Islands, the setting for the film. There was just one dilemna: watercolor backgrounds had not been used extensively in a Disney animated feature film in over six decades! 'The feeling in the animation community was that it was now impossible to make an entire animated feature film with watercolor backgrounds,' said Sanders. The medium was commonly used in the early days at Disney on such films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi and Dumbo, but background artists eventually turned to the more forgiving oil-based gouache as the preferred choice. Gouache backgrounds could be completed faster and could be fixed or altered if necessary, whereas watercolor backgrounds are far more unforgiving. Facing their challenge head on, the team did a test by creating two identical backgrounds--one using gouache and one with watercolors. The result was that using the lush, beautiful watercolor backgrounds suited the style of the film more than the gouache backgrounds. Working together, the background team experimented with watercolors and discovered new ways to make it practical and possible for the film. The final film contains over 1,200 amazing watercolor backgrounds, each a work of art in its own right. 'The saddest thing is that some of the backgrounds go by so quickly,' notes Sanders. He added, 'We couldn't have done this without the Florida background team. They are absolutely amazing. Near the end of the production they were creating watercolor backgrounds faster than they [used to] create gouache backgrounds.' With Lilo & Stitch, the background team created incredible works of art, and rediscovered an almost lost animated art form along the way." The Disney Catalog also reveals an interesting tidbit about the upcoming release: "As a tribute to the last animated films to use watercolor backgrounds, Dumbo makes a special appearance!"

From the The Washington Post

Interview with Lilo & Stitch Creators a Q&A session with Lilo & Stitch writer/director Chris Sanders and producer Clark Spencer, held by the Washington Post on May 1st. About the inter-Stitch-als, Chris Sanders explained that "it occurred to us that Stitch really doesn't fit in with the traditional Disney characters--so that's why we did that and always have a piece of the real film on these little trailers." Since Chris came up with this idea 17 years ago, "the character of Stitch is largely unchanged. His design was updated and his situation was largely changed, but the character retained all the things I thought of from the beginning. We have a lot of stuff that didn't get in the movie. We have many different scenes that had to be removed because of time constraints. There was one with Lilo reading to Stitch about mummies at the breakfast table--one of her fondest dreams. She pointed to out to Stitch that Eva Peron was one of the greatest mummifications of all time and that had to be cut out. In a lot of cases, characters have a history that you're never going to see. And Lilo and Stitch are no exception." But, add Clark Spencer, "we're already in production for a sequel and TV series. We'd like to take some ideas that couldn't be used in the film." What about these cheapquels? "The sequels are always well received and it seems to be something people enjoy seeing," moderates Chris Sanders, "but at the same time we're not going to continue to re-release sequels. So, don't be worried, because Disney will always be breaking new ground."

From the Honolulu Advertiser

'Lilo & Stitch' creators fall for Hawai'i's 'ohana

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

Disney switched from Kansas to Kaua'i for the setting of the upcoming movie "Lilo & Stitch" thanks, in large part, to a Garden Island tour guide and the 'ohana spirit of the Islands that he emphasized while the writer-directors were visiting several years ago.

And now the world is destined to be introduced to the notion of 'ohana when the film, expected to be Disney's big summer release, premieres June 21. Look and you'll find elements of Hanapepe, Hanalei, Napali and the Kilauea lighthouse, among other Hawai'i locations.

The film centers on Lilo (Daveigh Chase), a lonely Hawaiian girl who adopts a stranded alien dog from space, gives him the name Stitch and introduces him to the concept of family. She lives with her older sister/guardian, Nani (voiced by Tia Carrere); among other characters is David Kawena (Jason Scott Lee), a surfer type.

Writer-directors Chris Sanders, 40, and Dean DeBlois, 31, recall how Kaua'i replaced Kansas.

"Chris had a map (of Hawai'i) on the wall when we were still working on the story," DeBlois said. "Chris kept thinking that these small towns on Kaua'i he visited; they were perfect in size, with obvious beauty — and had the spirit of 'ohana."

" 'Ohana was not part of the original script," said Clark Spencer, 39, who is making his debut as producer with "Lilo."

"On a research trip (in Hawai'i), everybody spoke of 'ohana. For Stitch and his transformation, what would be better than 'ohana? He comes to know what it means to have family. It struck a chord and really resonates in a wonderful way. It will be great for cultures outside of the USA who might not have heard about it."

Sanders is forever grateful to a tour guide he refers to only as Francis, "who knew everybody everywhere we went on Kaua'i, which made me realize what a tight-knit community Hawai'i was," he said.

"The idea was that there were broader implications of 'ohana; that Stitch, the ultimate orphan with no parents, would come to be part of an 'ohana. We rewrote our entire film."

DeBlois said that Stitch was all about being an isolated sort, from a broken family. "The great thing about 'ohana is that family is not defined by parents or uncles. It can be a whole community," he said. "It works well with Stitch as part of a nonconventional family. It's an idea that's accepted, encouraged and celebrated."

The movie will be unusual because Sanders and DeBlois, who earlier collaborated on Disney's "Mulan," tweaked some of the Disney formula.

"Lilo & Stitch" bucks tradition in two ways: The tale begins with a shipwrecked Stitch, an alien from space who lands on Kaua'i, who starts off "bad" and ends up "good." The film also revives a bygone watercolor animation style (instead of using mostly computer-generated graphics). The technique was last used in "Dumbo." It is being used to capture the lush, organic and luminous flavor of the Islands.

"It originally was a story pitch, a children's book," said Sanders, of the screenplay he co-wrote and co-directed with DeBlois (Sanders also provided the voice of Stitch). "But when you talk about aliens, people get in their own minds a particular image; so we had to create illustrations as kind of a visual blueprint of where we would be going."

In the original version, Stitch, a misfit dog resulting from a genetic experiment, originally was to crash-land from space into a forest, where he would be ostracized by woodland creatures and forced to live life on his own in rural Kansas.

"Inherent in animated stories is the fact that heroes and villains are usually black and white; heroes win, villains die," said Sanders of formulaic fantasy tales. "But heroes are hard for normal people to aspire to; they're too good. This film begins with the capture of a villain, the would-be hero; every character has good and bad qualities; the bad aspire to be good, but there are frailties.

Sanders, a Disney animator since 1987, counts among his credits storyboarded sequences for "Beauty and the Beast."

DeBlois helped mold and shape "Lilo," with both creators storyboarding their screenplay together instead of having a story team work on it. Thus, they said, the vision and nuances of their story remained constant.

"Lilo" is the second animated film to be produced at the Walt Disney Animation facility in Florida; most features are produced in Burbank, Calif.

"Hawai'i works for the film," said Spencer, a 12-year Disney veteran who most recently served as senior vice president and general manager of Florida Disney operations. He said the co-writers/directors "made every effort to authenticate local elements, from hula to surfing to pronunciation of Hawaiian words.

"We worked with a former Ho-nolulu hula teacher, Mark Keali'i Ho'omalu, who now lives in Oakland, and through him and various sources, we were able to (film) real hula dancers and work out an original Hawaiian chant. Plus, we got a choir from Kamehameha Schools to sing 'He Mele No Lilo.' "

Because Sanders was an Elvis Presley fan, the movie incorporates The King's music. "In creating Lilo's character," Sanders said, "we have her as a devotee of records, gyrating to Elvis with an old-fashioned record player instead of CDs. Elvis is the soundtrack of her life."

DeBlois said that during casting, it was a priority to include some Hawai'i voices "to give a local spin on the dialogue." Carrere was signed first; it was she who suggested Lee. "What was great was the fact that with both Tia and Jason, we could write dialogue and pass on to them at the recording session, which they could deliver in a relaxed manner, and make suggestions, too, on accuracy."

As of May 6, 2002 from Animated Movies

The Origins of Lilo & Stitch

Co-director Chris Sanders, who came up with the idea for Lilo, says, "We looked at the simplicity and warmth of films like Dumbo and Bambi and the way the characters interacted. Instead of placing our emphasis on technical marvels, we wanted to slow the world down a bit and focus on character development and relationships."

Jim Hill goes on to explain that "Disney Studios execs are suddenly very concerned about their animated summer film, Lilo & Stitch. The reason, if you can believe it, is the less-than-stellar reception given E.T. See if you can follow this circular reasoning: E.T. is a movie about a little boy who befriends an extraterrestrial stuck here on Earth. "Lilo & Stitch" is a movie about a little girl who befriends an extraterrestrial stuck here on Earth. Given that Universal's promotional millions couldn't steer a new generation of filmgoing kids toward the Spielberg classic, is Disney's made-in-Orlando animated film doomed at the box office? Urgent meetings in Burbank among Disney's PR staff have focused on ways to keep this cartoon from sinking. This is the same brain trust that in 1985, after Paramount's Young Sherlock Holmes had tanked, scrambled to 'fix' Disney's upcoming animated release, Basil of Baker Street, about a mouse who modeled himself after Sherlock Holmes. The PR staff concluded that the former failed because modern audiences didn't like Sherlock Holmes movies. So, to distance their next cartoon from this alleged stigma, Disney rechristened Basil as The Great Mouse Detective. That sort of lamebrained response has the filmmakers shuddering in fear, even though Lilo & Stitch has been testing through the roof with audiences." As of March 30, 2002 from FilmForce

Writer and director Chris Sanders, who got his start in the business as a modeler on Muppet Babies, told FilmForce that "with this film we really wanted to go back to Disney's roots. We looked at the simplicity and warmth of films like Dumbo and Bambi and the way the characters interacted with each other. There was a purity and nostalgia that appealed to us." Sanders says that the crew opted to place their emphasis on character development and relationships instead of technical marvels or pushing new boundaries. "We wanted to slow the world down a bit," he says. "We were really attracted to showing the 'gray zone' in our characters. There's no one character in our film that is pure evil or pure good. Everybody has moments of honorable intent. We were able to create characters that are believable because they are fallible yet they try very hard." Co-writer/director Dean Dubois also described Chris Sanders' style saying, "I don't think I've ever seen Chris do a drawing that has a sharp angle. His characters tend to be very grounded, bottom-heavy, either in a poetic or chubby way." As of March 18, 2002 from Animation Magazine

Animation Magazine reveals that Disney’s latest animated feature, Lilo & Stitch, will have its Italian premiere at the sixth edition of Cartoons on the Bay — the International Festival and Conference of Television Animation — April 18 at Positano. The festival, which runs through April 22, will also include the Italian premiere of Cartoon Network’s Samurai Jack, new animated series as Mr. Bean and Jacques Cousteau’s Ocean Tales, as well as the Christmas Carol feature from director Jimmy Murakami who will receive this year’s Pulcinella career achievement award. This year’s major themes will be the application of computer animation in TV and the creation of soundtracks for cartoons.

As of March 9, 2002 from Animated Movies

Little Mermaid Inter-Stitch-Al Premieres on Disney Channel! A third Lilo & Stitch teaser aired last on the Disney Channel right before the new original movie Cadet Kelly. This trailer features Lilo & Stitch with The Little Mermaid. The trailer starts off with Ariel singing "Part of Your World", but building up behind her you see a giant wave, and there's Stitch riding down on it; the wave crashes on Ariel, and then there's some pretty funny dialogue between the two, with the usual Stitch mombo jombo that we've heard from the previous teasers, then it cuts to some of the movie footage showing an amazing shot of Stitch flying his spacecraft through a cavern. Great animation. Also shows him surfing with Lilo and and 2 others."

Will outtakes eventually be added to the end credits? One wonders, as Disney continues a very smart marketing campaign, clearly inspired from Pixar's past efforts, for its summer feature. Several inside jokes were already spotted in the latest trailer: a poster of Mulan is hanging on the wall of Lilo's bedroom, and a picture of the Magic Kingdom can be seen when Lilo and Stitch look at postcards in the street.

Accrording to Disney insiders, there may be a new Lilo & Stitch in which the trailer will target The Jungle Book. "Stitch will be put in the 'I wanna be like you' scenes where King Louie and Baloo are dancing, when King Louie is walking in a line with a monkey, and Mowgli" -but it's Stitch instead of Baloo who comes in next. This sounds surprising considering that the movie's official site only has two blank teaser squares left, and that the Mouse House's strategy seems to be poking fun at recent classics that kids are more familiar with

There will be 4 new trailers featuring Lilo & Stitch in treasers of other movies, the first one is in the Aladdin teaser, "Stitch flies up in his spaceship next to Aladdin & Jasmine on their magic carpet ride" and "whistles at Jasmine." Next will be on with the Lion King trailer which "starts out just like the movie with the opening 'Circle of Life' song... The animals make their way to the foot of Pride Rock to pay their respects to Simba... but Rafiki holds up Stitch instead!" The final trailer that Disney is currently finishing will be based on The Little Mermaid.

As of December 18, 2001 from Prevue Magazine

PREVUE: You are providing a voice for Disney's Lilo & Stitch, what can you tell us about it?

CARRERE: It's so cute! It's set in Hawaii and I play the guardian of my little sister. I've been working on it for two years. It's a much heavier film than you have ever seen from Disney, in that the girl's parents aren't present. You just sort of infer that it's the older sister taking care of the younger sister. I'm working hard, trying to get jobs, and there is a social services worker checking on the welfare of the child. I'm constantly trying to keep my head above water, so that Social Services doesn't take my sister away!

PREVUE: Social Services? That's a bit different than your average Disney film.

CARRERE: It's very modern, and it's also very charming, and very poignant.

PREVUE: So how does it feel to be a Disney character?

CARRERE: It's great! I've always wanted to be a Disney cartoon character. I was really upset when Mulan when slipped through there.

PREVUE: Did you hope to get that?

CARRERE: I had heard about Mulan and thought it would be great. It has the same casting director as Lilo & Stitch and apparently she tried to get in touch with me, but I was in Slovakia shooting a film. When I walked in for the first session of Lilo & Stitch, she told me that she had tried to get in touch with me for Mulan. In the end, it all came around for a great project. Anyway, I'm more from Hawaii than I am for Mainland China. Besides, I get to sing in it too! I get to sing a Hawaiian song to my little sister.

PREVUE: What do you sing?

CARRERE: I get to sing Aloha O`e, which is a traditional Hawaiian song that was written by Queen Liliuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch.

PREVUE: With all your travels, where are you recording Lilo & Stitch?

CARRERE: While I'm working on Relic Hunter, they'll pop in and say, "we've just got to get a line, or two." I was working out at rock quarry, an hour-and-a-half outside Toronto and there was huge machinery passing by. Now, my trailer's wonderful, but it's not exactly soundproof. We had this whole recording set-up in the trailer and we were waiting for the rock quarry trucks to pass, so we can get one clean line.

PREVUE: They actually use that line and it's not redubbed later?

CARRERE: No, no, they are amazing. They piece it all together. Jason Scott Lee was in London, so the directors and producers flew to London to record him there. When I was in Paris, they needed a line, so they could show the animation to their hire-ups at Disney, so I was in Paris, so they had to come to Paris.

PREVUE: Do they use your physical movements at all?

CARRERE: Although the character girl doesn't look like me, they videotape me as I am speaking, so they can see how my face moves, how my mouth moves.

PREVUE: How is working for Disney?

CARRERE: It's a wonderful atmosphere, very relaxed. They crack a joke, I crack a joke.

PREVUE: Have you had any input into your character?.

CARRERE: I really get to inject a lot into it. I've felt very free to inject some Hawaiianisms into the film. In Hawaii, there is a dialect we speak called Pidgin. It's a bit like broken English, but it's not that you are saying different words, it's just the way that you say them. It has a different intonation. I asked them if they wanted Pidgin, since this was supposed to be Hawaiian, and they said "sure, as long as we can understand it." So, I started improvising some dialog. I gave them some local Hawaiianisms that would still hold up to the general public, but that local Hawaiians would get a chuckle because it is so "on the money" for local people.

12/13/2001 - Updated 11:57 PM ET by Andy Seiler in the USA TODAY

New Disney characters are cute, roundish and retro

"If there is a Disney neighborhood, this film can be found somewhere between Bambi and Dumbo," says Chris Sanders, who directed with Dean DeBlois at Disney's Florida animation studio.

DeBlois adds: "The characters are very cute and very roundish," echoing Disney's classic '30s and early '40s style. That softer, retro look is enhanced by watercolor backgrounds, which Disney abandoned after Dumbo in 1941.

But if Lilo and Stitch looks old-fashioned, its story will be anything but. Lilo is a little girl who lives in a small Hawaii town and whose family is falling apart. She adopts Stitch, a dog, but what she doesn't know is that he's a very bad dog an alien, in fact.

"He's rotten, and the entire galaxy is after him," DeBlois says. In effect, the movie starts where most Disney movies end: with the capture of the villain. So what does happen? We'll find out June 21, when Lilo and Stitch opens.

As of November 2, 2001 from http://www.corona.bc.ca

The climax with the airplane has not been removed from the film... they replaced the airplane with a spaceship which Stitch takes for a joyride

This a part of an article from http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/eyedrive/
On september 26, 2001

Due to the recent trrorist bombing in the United States, Disney's extraterrestrial animated feature, "Lilo & Stitch," may get a makeover due to it. After all, the climax of this feature-length 'toon, produced entirely at the backstage animation facility at Disney/MGM Studios, was built around the then-comical notion that a cute little alien would sneak on board a 747, then take the jumbo jet for a joy ride through the towers of Honolulu. That sequence, which had gone over great with test audiences, now may be sacrificed.

Below are an extract from the September 12, 2001 issue of the MousePlanet report. The whole story can be found at http://www.mouseplanet.com/merchandise/mer010912c.htm

"Our next stop was the Animation Showcase, where Sue and I got a sneak peek of Lilo and Stitch. Sue will walk you through the presentation, since we were prohibited from taking any photographs in the showcase:

Sue: Throughout the week, the ConventionEars got a lot of sneak previews of coming attractions from the various segments of the Walt Disney Company. The sneak peek on Day One was a look at the Feature Animation offering for June 2002.

The first big event of the convention, Animation Showcase was located in the Grand Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel. It provided ConventionEars with the rare opportunity of being the first to see what next summer’s animated film, Lilo and Stitch, will look like. Added to that was the chance to talk with some of the film’s animators, see their work, and view the film’s trailer.

The room was set up in a maze-like pattern that was filled with original artwork from the film. There were storyboards and background scenes. On hand were: Chris Sanders, director / voice of Stitch; Dean DeBlois, director; Ric Sluiter, art director; Paul Felix, production designer; Byron Howard, supervising animator for Cobra Bubbles; and Peter Moehrle, background painter.

Art Director Ric Sluiter, responsible for the look of the film, the color, the design of the backgrounds, and the lay of the environment, gave a presentation about the style of the film. He is to animation what a set designer is to film.

Ric explained that to come up with the design of the film, the art director first goes back to the source, the story. Is it a comedy? a drama? This gives an indication of how the designs should look. Then, he looks at the environment of the story. In this case, Lilo and Stitch is set in Hawaii, so that provides an influence as well.

After spending a week in Hawaii, getting to know the locals and painting in both oil and water color, the production team discovered a few things they wanted to bring to the film: namely a bright color palette and the feeling of light.

The next step was to decide what medium to work in. Watercolor was chosen, since they wanted the film to have a softness, without hard edges or straight lines. Watercolor also does an interesting thing when laid down on white paper; it is a clear stain that lays on top of the paper so the white of the paper acts as a light source, giving the animators that push of color and light they observed in Hawaii.

The trouble with watercolor though, is that it is very difficult to work with. And Feature Animation had not used the medium since Dumbo in 1945. To hear Ric tell it, watercolor is pretty scary to work with. You can literally paint and entire scene, then blow it with that one last brush stroke. Not having worked with watercolor for so long, they weren’t quite sure what paper to use. They researched Snow White only to discover the Windsor- Newton paper used on that film was long gone. Ric explained that there were a lot of trials and tribulations along the way.

Once the style of the film was locked down, workshops began. A year was spent in acquainting the background artists with the watercolor style so as to keep the feeling of light and color they saw in Hawaii.

The production team interviewed Maurice Noble, one of the original watercolor painters on Snow White and went into the morgue, pulling out paintings from the 1930s from such film shorts as Hawaiian Holiday and Through The Mirror.

It is clear that all their hard work paid off. After looking at some of the backgrounds, I am terribly excited to see this film. While the story line seems a little been done before to me, I have to say the look of the film is spectacularly beautiful. What a treat it was for the ConventionEars to have the chance to personally ask the directors and animators how they feel about the little Hawaiian orphan and her encounter with an alien named Stitch."

As of August 13, 2001- Some of the scenes are being worked at on in Disey MGM studios

The following is a segments from Ain't It-Cool-News from January 2001

"There are two scenes.

The first scene has a female alien with tentacles for hair and an alien with one eye and a gumdrop shaped head talking about how to get Stitch back. They apparently are police or something. Someone asks why they can't blow up the Earth and the gumdrop alien replies that they can't because it is a nature preserve for the endangered mosquito (they are breeding them here). The scene continues with the two discussing who to send to get Stitch back before they decide on this big looking alien who we see in shadow behind bars.

The other scene was between Lilo and her mother or sister. They were having a fight about something.

Soory I can't be more specific. I saw the storyboards back on the 7th and I can only remember what stood out. Stitch looks like a blue koala bear with an extra set of arms. Lilo is small, not much bigger than Stitch. She has a great face for expression with big eyes and mouth."

From the July 27, 2000 Honolulu Advertiser:
"Disney plans movie with island flavor

By Shayna Coleon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Disney has an animated film in the works with an island story line, though much of the project is still in the works and under close wraps. What is known is that Honolulu actors and other stars with Hawaii ties were hired to provide vocals, and some authentic island flavor, for what some say will be one of the weirdest Disney features in years.

While no Disney contacts would provide more than a confirmation that an animated film is being produced, the word is out that it takes place in Hawaii and incorporates cultural themes.

"Lilo & Stitch" is about the adventures of a Hawaiian teen, Lilo, who lives on Kaua‘i. She finds and adopts a dog, Stitch, but soon discovers that Stitch is not a dog at all, but an intergalactic thief and killer who has disguised himself on Earth.

Chris Sanders, who created the original story, and Dean Deblois are directing the film.

While Disney representatives keep mum about whose voices are behind Lilo and Stitch, Honolulu-born star Tia Carrere was chosen to do the voice of Nani, Lilo’s sister, and native son Jason Scott Lee plays the character of Lilo’s crush.

Besides the usual mix of fantasy and reality found in Disney films, "Lilo & Stitch" also deals with heavier issues like homelessness and unemployment.

"Being a misfit, Lilo realizes that she truly fits with her community and in her own life," said Ray Bumatai, who was hired to improvise various background voices.

"The film deals with different kinds of things. Characters lose jobs, and they show a canoe club helping out. The entire film has a lot of constant Hawaii themes," he said.

Bumatai, along with Elissa Dulce, Rodney Villanueva, Nalani Keale, Karen Lum and Mary Ann Changg, created a "loop group" that completed four hours of taping at Audio Media Inc. two weeks ago in Honolulu.

They were cast by Anna Fishburn, who declined to comment on the details of the film.

Bumatai said the local actors were videotaped during the taping session so that the film’s animators could observe their lip and body movements.

The tapes and voice-overs were then sent via digital lines to Disney’s feature animation company in Orlando, Fla., said Dunbar Wakayama, president of Audio Media Inc.

"It was so much fun," said Dulce, whose character plays the owner of a restaurant where Nani applies for a job. "We’re, like, running around the sound booth, yelling, ‘Tsunami, tsunami!’ I think this is something Hawaii can look forward to. It’s all about the Islands."

An exept from Sept 20, 2000 update on Dark Horizons
...The drawings were labeled "Lilo and Stitch" and contained a wide range of items. These included coffee pots, bags, and other room furniture, but of interest was that of Tiki torches and several drawings of what was labeled "David's surfboard" (a beach movie?). To confuse things though was a picture of some sort of spacecraft which was labeled "Guargu's Ship"...."

Hans sorta looks kinda like John Smith with a rough beard and hair that is sorta long. Hans also has a body of Gaston though.

It is also rumored that Hans will kill Stich in the end and make this one of Disney's most emotional climaxes to an animated film.

Lilo and Stich is being produced at the Florida studio

Andreas left the Kingdom of the Sun project after working on that troubled film for about a year and a half, and now he's devoting himself to the next movie from Orlando.

Lilo and Stich is going to be in a more cartoony style and suggested it would be similar to the animation style of an old Disney animator named Freddie Moore. And it's not a musical, though they're going to try to buy the rights to a couple of Elvis songs, because Lilo likes to hula dance on the beach to Elvis music. The story was cooked up by one of Disney's top story guys, Chris Sanders, who created an illustrated story outline that everyone fell in love with. If you want a sense of what Sanders can do, check out his work in "The Art of the Lion King" book.